Broadband TV News reports that Italy is the latest country where the incumbent public service broadcaster is combining with commercial interests to put together a free satellite TV service, like the UK’s Freesat and France’s TNT Sat. The service is being discussed by public broadcaster RAI and rival Mediaset, jealous of the 5 million or so pay TV customers that Sky Italia has managed to accrue in Italy compared to Mediaset’s handful of pay TV customers.
Remember we said at the time of the Freesat launch that given that it can deliver 200 free channels, many of them HD just for the price of the set top and satellite dish, that this will drive down uptake rates of pay TV and shift HD delivery to satellite from DVB-T. We also said this will be copied all over Europe.
According to reports Telecom Italia is also involved and the new service will offer 100% national coverage and target those people outside the reach of terrestrial frequencies to kick start it, which is around 5% of the country.
We will watch carefully to see if, once launched, this impacts the uptake rate of Sky Italia, which now has almost 5 million customers. The service will be delivered from the Eutelsat Hot Bird at 13 degrees East, which the two broadcasters already use for channel delivery.
There is some speculation that Mediaset was using this as a bargaining tool to get Sky movie channels on its own services, and that now those talks have stalled, the threat is being followed through.
That may be in keeping with how the Italians see Mediaset owner and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, but the truth is that, now proven, free to air satellite delivery has compelling economics.